


Shock

by ChipTheKeeper



Series: Shock [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon, Pre-Mandalorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23223940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipTheKeeper/pseuds/ChipTheKeeper
Summary: “Are you some kind of Imp spy or just the stupidest piece of Bantha crap in the Rebel army?” the commanding officer implored, towering over Rylan, who was at this point fuzzy on the answer, both thanks to the punch and (she hated herself for thinking) the attractiveness of its deliverer.“Forgive me, Commander,” Rylan slurred with all the charm she could muster, “first day on the job. Used to being a little higher up.”A brand new shock trooper joins Cara Dune's unit. It doesn't take long for each of them to realize they need the other to survive.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Character(s), Cara Dune/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Shock [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698037
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	1. Dropped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story will be mostly told from the original character's perspective, just fyi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real talk, I was in love with Cara the moment I saw her. But when Moff Gideon said "Carasynthia Dune OF ALDERAAN," it was game over. I've thought about very little besides her possible backstory since then. This is the result of that. Oh, and a pandemic.
> 
> This is also my second ever attempt at writing a fic (first with an original main character), so bear with me. The first one never got finished, so fingers crossed this one actually makes it. I'm only planning four or five parts/chapters I think.
> 
> Enjoy! (please)

One day into her first deployment as a shock trooper, Rylan Killis was struck by the realization that she had no idea what she was doing.

And also a fist.

Luckily for her, it was the fist of a fellow Rebel and not an Imp. Unluckily, it was the fist of Commander Carasynthia Dune. And it was deserved. Ry’s mistake had almost cost her squad a number of lives, but fortunately the depleted Imperial forces weren’t able to take advantage in time. That fortune wouldn’t save her from a well-earned lecture from her muscled commander, however.

“Are you some kind of Imp spy or just the stupidest piece of Bantha crap in the Rebel army?” the commanding officer implored, towering over Rylan, who was at this point fuzzy on the answer, both thanks to the punch and (she hated herself for thinking) the attractiveness of its deliverer. The punch had landed square on her jaw. She’d tried to stay on her feet but after a moment of stumbling succumbed to gravity and the comfort of the ground, to the other troopers’ stifled laughter.

“Forgive me, Commander,” Rylan slurred with all the charm she could muster, “first day on the job. Used to being a little higher up.”

She pointed waywardly toward the sky, and Dune’s eyes followed the path upward to glance at the space battle raging on overhead. Since the destruction of the second Death Star, cleaning up the remaining Imps was a formality, but it still took a toll, especially in the air.

“Dune!” the sound of the general’s voice boomed over the din of soldiers arriving at the base. “Please tell me you had a good reason for knocking out your fellow trooper!”

“This mudscuffer almost blew the entire operation, sir,” Dune explained. “I was just making sure it wouldn’t happen again.”

“Well perhaps instead of resulting to cheap shots, you could achieve that end by different means,” he admonished. “Captain Killis here could probably use some guidance from such an experienced dropper as yourself, did that ever cross your mind?”

Dune studied her boots in embarrassment. Rylan finally found the strength to put her feet under her again and stood at attention next to the commander.

“Killis, please inform Commander Dune why you were transferred to this squad from being a pilot,” requested the general.

Rylan winced, both at the memory and the commander’s potential reaction. “Brain damage, sir.”

Dune cursed under her breath and Rylan had to hold back a chuckle. Commander Dune's temper and irreverence could not have been hotter to her.

“Escort Captain Killis to medical,” the general said, dismissing the two. “And make sure she learns what she needs to know to keep you from feeling the urge to strike her again.”

As he walked away, Rylan sheepishly turned to face the commander, half-afraid she might just get hit again. But Dune turned toward her and mumbled something through gritted teeth.

“Huh?” Rylan said dumbly.

Dune sighed. “I said ‘I’m sorry.’ I hope I didn’t make you more damaged.”

“Me too,” Rylan said with a sly grin. “I’d hate to find out what you’d do to an even dumber piece of Bantha crap.”

The commander rolled her eyes as she passed Rylan to walk toward the medic, but she couldn’t hide a hint of a smile herself.

Through the process of making it to the medical unit and getting checked out and treated by the droid on duty, Rylan filled the commander in on her recent change in assignments within the Alliance forces. She had somehow survived having her X-Wing shot down in a skirmish shortly before the Battle of Endor, but the impact of the crash had left its invisible mark. Her focus and reflexes had been seriously affected, leaving her physically unfit for combat flying. It was a hard reality to accept for Rylan, whose whole adult life had been spent in the cockpit of one ship or another. But she was given another opportunity to help the Rebel cause in the ground forces, and she had to take it. After a successful stint in the infantry, she’d recently been deemed worthy of a transfer to the crack shock trooper unit.

“I barely remember Endor, I was so out of it,” she told Dune. “But these last ones on the ground, I don’t think I’ll be forgetting those. It’s sure a different thing to look the enemy in the eye. Well. In the bucket...head...anyway. I just have so much more respect for you guys now.”

“Not ‘you guys,’ Killis. You’re one of us now,” said the commander.

“You sure? I didn’t exactly have a great first day on the job,” Rylan said with a self-deprecating smile as she looked across the medical room at Dune, who was having a cut on her arm attended to by the droid.

Dune shook her head and smiled. “Alright Killis, I’ll let you in on a little secret but you have to promise it stays between me, you, and this droid.”

“Well I can’t speak for the droid, but you have my word,” said the captain with a conspiratorial grin.

“My programming requires full confidentiality to all troops serviced, Commander,” the droid’s mechanical voice chimed in.

Rylan chuckled and shrugged, “There you go. Have to tell us now.”

Dune shook her head. “My first day went about as well as yours,” she said, to Rylan’s surprise. “My feet hit the ground on Haidoral Prime and I suddenly forgot every single thing I’d learned in training. Just froze completely. Took a blaster bolt whizzing right past my face to snap back into it, but even then I don’t think I hit a single Imp that day. And I made high marks in blaster training. It’s just….a whole different experience when it actually matters. The only thing that can really prepare you is being in it. We all learn that on the first day.”

She finished somberly, staring off somewhere Rylan couldn’t see.

“Yeah…” Rylan said, remembering her first space battle. Then after a moment of silence between them added, “So you probably should have been a little more patient with me, huh?”

The commander snapped back to attention with another amused eye roll. “In my defense, I didn’t know it was your first day.”

“Fair enough.”

After both being cleared by the medical droid, the two troopers agreed they weren’t in the mood to visit the mess hall, opting instead to retire to the barracks. 

“If I’m gonna be teaching you how not to get us all killed out there, we might as well room together,” Dune suggested, much to Rylan’s quiet delight.

“If you say so, Commander,” she said as coolly as she could manage.

“Cara.”

“What?”

“You can call me Cara.”

“Nice to meet you, Cara,” said the captain, holding out a hand, “I’m Ry.”

Cara looked down at the hand then back to Rylan’s face before finally accepting the handshake. “You’re weird, Ry.”

“Thank you, Commander Cara.”

The two settled in on their respective sides of the dual bed dormitory, their limited belongings having been retrieved from the transport. Cara then walked the new dropper through the events of the day and what could and should have been done differently. Rylan listened respectfully, making mental notes and asking questions here and there. It was obvious Cara was an exceptionally smart and skilled soldier and, despite her outburst surrounding Rylan’s ignorance earlier in the day, a brave and trustworthy leader. 

Two hours and one stifled yawn from Rylan later, Cara deemed lesson time closed for the evening. It had already been an incredibly long day for each of them. As much as she wanted to pick her commanding officer’s brain about more than just battle tactics, Rylan found herself falling asleep the moment her head hit her pillow.

~

The following day proved to be much less mentally stressful but even more physically exhausting, as Cara utilized their day off to put Rylan through the ringer in the base’s training gym. A career in the pilot’s seat hadn’t called for a ton of physical strength, but she considered herself to be in pretty good shape. That was, until she trained with Cara Dune.

Cara was physically superior to her in every way. She was faster, stronger, tougher, more agile. She had incredible endurance, continuing to train at whatever task they were on straight through the many breaks Rylan needed to take to even begin to keep up.

At one point Ry just had to stop and stare in awe while Cara, without a hint of fatigue, continued pulling her muscular frame up on the chin-up bar for 10 more reps after she had dropped out herself.

“Drooling, Killis?” Cara quipped, powering through one last rep. “Or just sweating from your mouth?”

“Impossible to tell,” said Rylan honestly, soaked in sweat from her short blonde hair to her toes and everywhere in between, but also undeniably aroused. But despite Cara’s borderline flirtatious crack, she was determined not to make it too obvious that she was attracted to her superior officer. The Rebel army didn’t have any hard rules against fraternization between ranks, but Rylan tended to play it safe on the romantic front until discerning whether the other person was really on board. Coming from a world where two women or two men being “together” was seen as scandalous at best, her early life had been complicated by her feelings toward other girls. As of now, she had no idea if Cara came from a similar place or one more open to...less traditional lifestyles.

Rylan pondered this as Cara finally took a break, dumping some cold water over her own head of sweaty black hair before taking a drink. Her muscles glistened, plain for all to see in her sleeveless shirt, along with the trademark shock trooper tattoo on her right bicep.

“Am I gonna get one of those?” Rylan asked, nodding at the ink.

“You got a long way to go to earn one of these, trooper.”

Their afternoon and evening were spent in much the same fashion as the night before, with the exception of actually eating in the mess hall with the rest of their unit and later receiving the news that they’d be shipping out again the following day. Apparently the remaining Imp forces were all converging on a planet called Jakku, about to make one last stand for the Empire.

“Guess I’m not gonna have time to earn that tattoo,” Rylan said half-sarcastically when they were back in their dorm.

“End of the war doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the trouble,” Cara replied. “Still plenty of time for you to prove you’re dropper material.”

That idea, Rylan found, wasn’t quite as pleasing as she made it sound.

~

“Are you asleep?” Cara’s whispered voice came as a surprise to Rylan, but a welcome one.

“No. You? Wait--”

“I can’t tell if you’re saying that to be funny or--”

“I promise you, no.”

“Well,” Cara turned on the light by her bedside without warning, causing Rylan to yelp and hide her face back in her pillow. The commander sat up, not noticing. “I can never sleep the night before a battle if I know it’s coming.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“What do you usually do?”

“Do? Uhh, lay there? I don’t understand the question. Why are you sitting up?”

“I have to do something. I usually go train. You wanna go?”

“We trained for like 8 hours today, what--” 

“Four hours, tops. How do you measure time on your planet?” Cara paused. “Wait, what planet are you from?”

“I’ll tell you if you promise not to make me work out more.”

Cara considered that seriously for a moment, then sighed. “Fine.”

Even after getting what she wanted out of that exchange, Rylan hesitated before answering. “Corellia. You’re looking at a pure-bred scrumrat.”

“Ah. Should have known,” Cara said with a wry smile, leading Rylan to toss a pillow at her face, which the commander caught effortlessly. “Kidding, Killis. No need to be so testy.”

“Testy is a scrumrat’s nature, thank you,” Rylan retorted, now sitting up herself and resting her back against the wall to face the other woman. “What about you? What wretched world do you call home?”

With that question, the mood shifted. Cara’s smile faded instantly, a weariness creeping into her eyes. Rylan didn’t miss it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“No, it’s okay,” Cara said assuringly. She took a moment to collect herself, sighed, and said, “I’m from Alderaan.”

“Oh. Kriff, I - I’m--” Rylan searched for words as a hundred implications of that sentence washed over her. “I’m so sorry….I guess I don’t need to ask why you’re in this line of work.”

Cara stared off into that far away place again. Rylan’s heart broke for her. She had only known one other Alderaanian in her time with the Rebellion, a pilot who defected from the Empire after his home world was destroyed, but the subject had never been brought up in conversation between them. As much as Rylan hated Corellia and actively tried to avoid returning to it, she had no idea what it would be like to know the entire planet was gone. The galaxy was vast and she’d seen her fair share of it, but you only get one home world.

“Yeah. And now you know why I don’t sleep,” Cara said tiredly.

Rylan nodded, still half lost in thought. “Maybe we oughta go work out after all.”

“No, you stay,” Cara said. “I already let you off the hook.”

Rylan started to object.

“It’s fine,” the commander said. “I’m fine.”

She got up and left before the ex-pilot could refute. When she returned in the wee hours of the morning, Rylan pretended to be asleep.


	2. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes get high and have a heart to heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: there's a slight reference to suicidal thoughts, so please be aware of that.

Rylan Killis earned her stripes at the Battle of Jakku. Literally.

With both Cara’s instructions and story weighing heavily on her mind, Rylan was more determined than ever to personally make the Imps pay, and it proved to be an effective motivator. By the time the last Star Destroyer crashed into the desert, she had begun to wonder why it had ever been a big deal that she couldn’t man an X-wing again.

Now, three full days into the victory celebrations, Rylan sat in a grimy ink shop on Coruscant trying not to wince in pain as Cara watched her get her dropper’s tattoo. The Alderaanian looked on with amusement at the squirming Rylan, sipping a Trandoshan ale like they had both been doing continuously over the past few days. Rylan wasn’t sure where the buzz from the ale left off and the buzz from the ink gun started.

“It looks good on you,” Cara said suddenly.

“Really?” said Rylan without the slightest effort to hide her disbelief at a compliment coming her way from the commander. She did her best to recover coolly. “I mean...it’s fine. I certainly don’t fill it out as well as you.”

A smirk flashed across Cara’s face. She flexed her right arm repeatedly, making her tattoo grow and shrink with her biceps. “Yeah. You really don’t.”

Rylan had to bite down on her lip to keep from groaning.

When they left the ink shop with a fresh tattoo each — Cara had gotten a tiny Rebel Alliance symbol on her left cheek — they had no idea where to go next. The sprawling, planet-wide city held basically endless possibilities, but for two people who had spent the most recent years of their lives embroiled in war, none of it seemed like enough. Or it all seemed like too much. Rylan couldn’t tell if that dichotomy in her mind was due to the alcohol or the situation. Probably both.

As they walked aimlessly, she suggested meeting back up with the rest of their unit, from whom they’d broken off to find an ink shop.

Cara took a long swig of ale before answering. “I dunno, I’m kind of exhausted of being around them right now. Think I’d rather just be alone for a little while.”

“Oh…” Rylan said, physically deflating.

“No,” Cara laughed, nudging the captain’s arm, “alone with you.”

“Oh!” _Gotta work on controlling that excitement, Killis_. “Wait, like...alone alone?”

“Why do I always feel like you’re talking in code?” Cara eyed her with feigned suspicion. “Just say what you mean, Killis.”

“Well, are you talking about hanging out with me in a public place, or...just the two of us? You know. Privately.”

“Are you asking if I want to go to bed with you?” the dark haired woman asked, stopping in the middle of the walkway to glare at her companion.

“Woah. I didn’t say that,” Rylan said defensively, backing away a step.

Cara continued glaring for a moment, then softened again. “Good. Because that’s not what I want to do.”

Rylan sighed (only partly disappointed), realizing she’d been holding her breath. “Then what do you want to do?”

Cara took off walking again, her long, slow strides carrying her away before Rylan remembered to follow. “I want to see the city.”

“See the city?” Rylan echoed, spreading her arms out in a showing gesture. “Well, here it is.”

“No, I want to see the whole city.”

“Cara, it’s….a planet. That’s literally not possible.”

“Fine. I want to see as much of the planet-city as possible in one place. Where can we do that?”

They had arrived at the top-most level of the infinitely-layered city, where they could finally see that it was nighttime, a fact completely indeterminable even two levels down. “Well I don’t know, you’ve spent more time here than me.”

Cara looked up. The speeder lanes in this region were surprisingly sparse given the massive population of the planet. “Shame we don’t have a ship,” she said.

Rylan’s eyes followed her gaze skyward. For the briefest of moments, the former scrumrat considered how easy it would be to steal a ship and give Cara exactly what she wanted. But that insane thought passed mercifully when her eyes landed on a flashing light high above their heads.

“Maybe we don’t need one.”

~

“Remind me again what our excuse is when we get caught up here?” Cara asked, grabbing two more ales from her knapsack and handing one to Rylan.

She took the bottle and laughed. “We’re war heroes, we don’t need an excuse! We liberated this world. If it weren’t for us, it’d be Imps climbing up here, trying to...I dunno, steal the...signal?”

Cara laughed as well, a sound so rare and sweet that Rylan decided right then she’d do anything to hear it over and over. “You have no idea what this tower even does, do you?”

“Not a clue. And you better not tell me, I don’t want to feel bad about this now that we finally made it.”

Sneaking into the thin building with the signal tower at the top had been easy and exciting, but climbing endless stairs and then a ladder to the top much less so. Cara, with her endless endurance, didn’t seem to mind. But Rylan was still fighting back heavy breaths as they finally sat along the railing, their feet dangling hundreds of meters above the top level of the city. Although, now that she thought about it, maybe it was the sight that was breathtaking. Or the company.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping their drinks and taking in the incredible view. As the speeders zipped past below them and tiny dots assumed to be sentients glided along below that, the two of them enjoyed the peaceful, easy silence they shared. Rylan stole a glance at Cara, watching her watch the world go by. There was an air of content about her, a look of comfort that Rylan never would have thought she’d see when they’d met just days ago. When she’d learned where the hardened trooper came from.

“You look happy,” she couldn’t stop herself from saying.

“It’s not polite to stare, Killis,” Cara said, opting not to look back at the other woman.

“I’m not staring. Just...observing.”

“Observing my face. Extendedly.” She finally turned to look at her, catching her in the act.

Rylan’s eyes darted away reflexively, but she returned them when she realized Cara was smiling softly at her. “Yeah, alright. It’s just nice to see.”

“What, my face?”

“No. I mean. Yeah, but like. I meant, you looking happy.” _Nice recovery, laser brain_.

Cara rolled her eyes in amusement, then looked back out over the city. “I don’t know if I’d say it’s happiness. More like….I’m relieved.”

“That we won?”

“I guess. That it’s over. I don’t really remember what I wanted at the end of this, you know?” Cara brought her feet up from over the edge and sat back against the fence wall behind them. Rylan followed. “Maybe….I just wanted to die.”

Rylan didn’t know how to respond to that sudden revelation. It was probably rare among the Rebels to find a soldier that hadn’t at one point considered that maybe, just maybe, it would be easier to give up and die than to keep fighting. She’d had many moments like that herself, especially since being grounded. But she’d never heard anyone speak about it so openly.

“I’m sorry. That was….really morbid,” Cara said in a weak attempt to soften the mood.

“No, don’t be sorry. I get it. The war was tough on all of us.”

“Yeah. But that’s….not entirely what I mean,” she absentmindedly stroked the fresh tattoo on her face and suddenly it dawned on Rylan what she did mean.

“Alderaan.” It was barely more than a whisper.

Cara nodded tightly, having found that far-off place she liked to stare at when she thought of her home world. Tears threatened to fill her eyes, but she fought them back as fiercely as she’d fought the Imps.

“Do the others know?” Rylan asked, and Cara shook her head.

Rylan didn’t know what else to say. She wanted to hug her. To hold her and tell her it was alright. But it wasn’t. An entire world was gone. Millions of people. Countless stories, histories, beloved family homes, irreplaceable items. It was a tragedy too painful to put into words, an act too evil to ever forgive. If Rylan hadn’t joined up with the Rebellion in its early days just as an excuse to get off of Corellia, the Alderaan news certainly would have driven her to the fight anyway. 

And that was long before she’d met the Alderaanian sitting next to her. A woman who, in less than a week of their acquaintance, had completely taken over every corner of her mind, who she’d do anything to protect or make smile. A warrior and a friend who did not deserve to have the home she knew completely erased. How selfishly lucky Rylan felt in that moment, that Cara hadn’t been there.

“I’m sure you want to ask the obvious question,” Cara said, as if she’d been reading her mind.

Rylan looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “Only if you want to answer.”

“I want to tell you, Ry,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. “I trust you. Ask me.”

The Corellian shifted closer, touching their shoulders together in a subtle act of support. “Why weren’t you there?” she asked quietly.

Cara sighed, leaned ever so slightly into the shoulder touching hers. “I was running away,” she said, exhaling as if it was the first time she’d admitted that to anybody, and Rylan realized it probably was. “I guess technically I had already run away long before then, but, it’s kind of a continuous act, don’t you think?”

Rylan took that as a rhetorical question, although she did agree. She’d run away from Corellia and would continue to do so for the rest of her life if she had any say in the matter.

Cara continued, telling Rylan and the rest of the Coruscant night the whole of her story. “My parents were important people on Alderaan. Rich and generous business owners, members of the Queen’s court, trusted friends of Breha and Bail Organa. All that. Princess Leia and I used to play together in the palace when we were little girls, that’s how close our families were.”

Rylan had to smile at that image, having seen Leia a handful of times in tactical briefings. Everything she knew about her solidified the idea that she and Cara would have gotten along perfectly.

“As an only child, I was in line to inherit my father’s business and place in the government once he retired. That in itself was enough for me to want to leave, but of course there was the other part of it. Alderaan was such a perfect, wholesome place and everybody important had to have a perfect, wholesome family. And for me, eventually, that was going to mean marrying some guy and having kids. Neither of which has ever been one of my goals in life.”

Rylan smiled again, ruefully. In her wildest imaginations, she couldn’t conjure an image of Cara as a doting mother and wife. It filled her with sadness to realize how lonely she must have felt, believing that that would have to be her future.

“So, first chance I got, I bailed. Snuck onto a ship bound for Hosnian Prime and never looked back. When my parents contacted me, I convinced them it was just temporary, that I’d come home soon, but I had no intention of going back. That was just to keep them sending me credits while I figured out how to make my own.” She paused, the tears she’d fought away suddenly winning as the memory of her deception took over. “The thing that I regret the most is just not being honest with them. If I’d known….”

“No, you can’t blame yourself. No one could have known.”

“I know. I just….it’s not fair that the last thing they knew of me was a lie.”

“It wasn’t,” Rylan said, tentatively placing a calming hand on Cara’s knee. “They were just looking forward to seeing you again. They were hopeful.”

Cara turned to her for the first time since starting her story. “I never thought of it that way,” she said, covering Rylan’s hand with her own. “Thank you.”

Unable to hold such a weighted gaze between them, they both looked back out over the vast city.

“So, that’s where you were? When….” Rylan couldn’t bring herself to finish the thought.

Cara sighed. “Actually, no. I had only spent a few standard months on Hosnian when I figured out a way to make money without depending on my father. And it was a way he loathed, which only made it that much more enticing a career to me.”

“And that was….?”

“Gambling.”

Rylan chuckled slightly. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I loved it. And I was good. So I went to the place everybody who thinks they’re a good gambler goes.”

“Jail.”

Cara rolled her eyes and fought back a laugh. “Canto Bight.”

“Ah, right. That was my next guess.”

The Alderaanian shook her head before continuing to stare out over the city. “And that, is where I really decided I’d never go back.”

“Caught a lucky streak, did you?” Rylan said, trying to keep the mood up.

“Yeah,” Cara agreed wistfully. “That’s where I met Lyra.”

Rylan’s eyebrows shot up so fast she thought they might fly off her face. Cara didn’t seem to notice.

“She was a dealer in one of the casinos. I sat down at her table, she smiled at me, and it was game over.”

_I know that feeling_ , Rylan thought with a quiet laugh. She wanted to ask a thousand questions after that revelation, but she kept her mouth shut while Cara went on.

“She flirted with me so hard that I forgot what game I was even playing. When I lost just about all I had, I told her I’d have to come back the next night to make it all back. And I did. And I came back the next night and the night after that. I’m sure it was awful for the other players to watch, but I couldn’t care less. After a week, I finally got up the nerve to ask to see her away from the table. She said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ We spent almost every day together after that. It was the first time I ever remember feeling truly happy, truly myself. Truly free.”

Rylan knew that feeling, too. The first taste of real freedom. There was nothing like it. She’d cried when she felt it, the first time she’d flown off-world, into wide open space. Nothing was more free than that.

“That feeling lasted about a year,” Cara continued. “One day we were hanging out at another casino’s bar when suddenly all the normal sounds of gambling and fun turned into hushed voices. Like everyone was passing around some sort of secret with each other. There were whispers. _An explosion. No, a space station destroyed. No, a moon. No. A planet. Which one? Yavin. Coruscant. Corellia. Mandalore. No. No….Alderaan. That’s what I heard too, Alderaan. Yeah. It’s gone_.”

For the first time, Rylan’s eyes teared up along with Cara’s. She hadn’t needed the description of the way the rumors had spread -- it happened the exact same way where she had been. But for her, the confirmation of which specific planet had brought at least a tinge of relief that it wasn’t hers. For Cara, and any other Alderaanian who happened to be away that day, it was only agony.

“I don’t even remember how we got the news about what really happened, who was behind it. All I remember is that one second I’d feel crushing despair and the next just, blinding rage. Eventually the rage won out, and all I could think about was doing anything I could to destroy the Empire,” Cara’s hands drew up into fists, as if there were Imps right in front of them who needed punching. “When the Rebels put out the call for new volunteers, I didn’t hesitate.”

“What about Lyra?” asked Rylan.

The humorless laugh returned. “I tried and tried to get her to join up with me, but she refused. She said it wouldn’t make a difference, trying to get revenge on them. That I’d probably die in the process. She said killing them would make me no better than they were,” she said, wincing noticeably at the memory. “Hell, maybe she was right. But I know we were right, too.”

With that, Cara finished her drink and let the bottle slide from her fingers and down many, many stories off the side of the tower. Rylan waited and waited to hear a faint smash or cry of pain, but none ever came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!


	3. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know if anyone is finding this good at all but I've had fun writing it so I'll keep posting it.

They had descended slowly and quietly down the tower after Cara’s story, both caught up in their own thoughts and too drunk to get down safely without focusing hard on the task at hand.

Somehow they made their way back to the suite of rooms that their unit had been using as home base since arriving on-world. And so had the rest of the droppers, much to Rylan’s surprise. It seemed the whole unit was there, a first since they’d arrived and soon after set out in pairs and groups to find and consume as much alcohol as possible to celebrate their victory.

A chorus of half a dozen voices greeted the pair warmly as they made their way into the main room.

“Let’s see it!” demanded Lio, another commander on the squad. Cara and Rylan looked at each other in confusion until he flexed his right arm and smacked his shock trooper tattoo. “Let’s see it!”

Rylan laughed, rolled up her sleeve, and flexed dramatically, showing off her own fresh tattoo.

“Well, look at that,” said a Twi’lek lieutenant named Dalla, examining the ink. “The flyer’s a dropper. Who would have thought?”

The squad laughed, always happy to poke some good-natured fun at the former pilot. After her rough first day, she’d fit in nicely with them, a fact she didn’t take for granted for a second under the circumstances.

“Thanks, guys,” Rylan played along. “I never could have done it without Commander Cara here.”

“Damn right, you couldn’t,” Cara deadpanned, to the delight of the others. She sat down at the table with the rest of them and Rylan followed, though they ended up on opposite sides. A sabacc game was well underway, and Rylan hoped it would end soon so they could all go to bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept. But Cara, former professional gambler that she was, immediately joined the game. “Deal me in.”

Two hours later she had cleaned them all out, one by one. Lio had lasted the longest against her, but in the end he realized he’d met his match. Rylan was half asleep in her chair as the final hand ended and the rest of the squad congratulated one commander and ribbed the other.

Slowly they all trickled away from the table and off to the bunk rooms, each home to a pair of beds, just as it had been on almost every base. When it was just the two of them left, Rylan watched as Cara stacked the chips neatly, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Is there anything you can’t win at?” Rylan questioned.

Cara looked up at her with a smirk. “Haven’t found anything yet.”

Rylan shook her head as she leaned back in her chair. “You’re a very impressive person, Cara Dune.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Rylan Killis.”

“Who, me?” Rylan said mid-yawn, her quip completely unintelligible.

“Maybe I spoke too soon.”

“Nah, you like me. Admit it.”

Cara chuckled. “Of course I like you, Ry. I don’t pour my soul out for just anybody,” she said, growing serious. “Or anybody at all, for that matter.”

Rylan looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “Well, I’m honored. And I’m always here to listen. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” she said with a thankful smile. “Now how ‘bout we get some sleep?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Under normal circumstances, Rylan would have gone to bed that night with a mind so full of racing thoughts that it would have been impossible to sleep, especially with the object of most of those thoughts lying just out of arm’s reach. But thankfully, the battle followed by the nonstop celebrations for three days had left her so completely exhausted that she fell immediately into a deep sleep.

When she woke up, though, all those thoughts instantly flooded over her. The battles, the punch in the face, the aftermath, the celebration, the conversations. All of it played in her mind, none of it made sense. Maybe she’d fallen on her head out of the drop ship and none of it had been real. Even if it wasn’t, she decided, she didn’t care.

Rylan looked to the bed on the opposite side of the small room, surprised to find her roommate still there, still sound asleep. It was an overwhelming sight. Cara laid on her side, clutching her pillow. Her hair was a mess, covering much of the portion of her face not buried in the bedding. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, and suddenly Rylan realized she was holding hers.

In a sense, she’d been holding her breath ever since she met the commander, waiting for any sign, any sense that they shared a similar attraction or feelings for each other. Last night’s conversation had moved the possibility forward of course, with the revelation of her past relationship. And the two of them had grown so close in such a short time - the rest of the squad had even picked up on their oddly fast-moving friendship. But Rylan worried that it would never be more than that. After all she’d been through, would Cara even be able to open her heart to someone again?

_No_ , Rylan shook her head at herself, _that’s not what matters right now_. As strong as her attraction was, she had to do whatever she could to just be there for her friend, whatever that meant for them together.

Cara had begun to stir as Rylan made this promise to herself, and suddenly they were eye to eye. She moved the dark hair from her face and smiled softly at the Corellian. “Extendedly observing my face again?” she rasped.

“Me? No. Just in shock you’re not off working out somewhere.” Rylan was quietly impressed at her smooth response. But Cara’s smile gave way to a sleepy laugh, and that was that for the coolness. She had to actively remind herself to keep inhaling and exhaling.

“I do sleep in sometimes, okay?” the Alderaanian said with feigned offense.

“Well this is the first I’ve seen it.”

“You’ve known me for a week!”

“Is that all?”

Cara laughed again. They hadn’t taken their eyes off each other since she’d woken up. “Feels like a lot longer than that, doesn’t it?” Rylan nodded. “Been a good week.”

Before Rylan could agree, there was an excited knock on their door. “I hear voices! Better come get some food before the boys eat it all!” Maggi, another lieutenant and the “squad mom” called to them.

“Well, we can’t have that,” said Cara, rolling out of bed and leaving Rylan to fall back on her pillow and stare at the ceiling.

At the breakfast table, the squad had left open seats next to each other for the last two stragglers. As she sat down next to Cara, Rylan realized she was unsurprisingly hungover. While the others ate and chatted, she made it her mission to drink as much coffee as she could.

Cara and Rylan were quiet while the talk centered on stories and jokes from previous battles and deployments, but Lio couldn’t abide that for long. “So where’d you two sneak off to last night?” he asked, causing the other five to look at them expectantly.

The Alderaanian pointed at the new tattoo on her face. “Would have thought that was obvious, Lio.”

“Nah, that wouldn’t have taken so long. Unless you got lost on the way back.”

“I bet they did get lost,” chimed in Timber, a major from the Hosnian system. “Dune had a sack full of ale and Killis has a head full of brain damage. Not a good combination.”

“Ouch,” Rylan finally got in but was cut off before she could actually explain.

“No, no, no. They weren’t lost,” said Herk, Rylan’s fellow captain on the squad. “I bet you anything they were off somewhere making out.”

The coffee Rylan had just sipped fell out of her mouth. Cara sat her mug down with a thud as half the squad ooh-ed and the other gasped. She glared at Herk with her most serious commander’s face. “If I were you, Herk, I’d hold off on making any more bad bets after that sabacc performance last night.”

Everyone laughed and ganged up to tease Herk, who hung his head. Rylan patted Cara on the back thankfully, happy she’d been quick enough to take the spotlight off them in an instant.

“Alright, alright,” Maggi said, doing her motherly best to calm down the rowdy crew. “So, we’ve got a few months before we have to report in again. What’s everybody doing next? Staying here? Hanging out on some random world? Heading home?”

That question made Rylan more nervous than Herk’s accusation. She glanced at Cara, whose hand gripped her mug tightly. One thing they hadn’t gotten around to talking about yet was what was next. What could possibly be next when you don’t have a home or a family to return to?

“It’s back to Ryloth for me,” said Dalla. “I can’t wait to see my family again.”

“Same here,” said Keoni, a lieutenant from Bespin and Maggi’s twin brother. “The family part, not Ryloth.”

Maggi rolled her eyes. “I don’t know, maybe you could be a little more appreciative of the family you already see everyday.”

“Well, I’m staying here _and_ heading home,” announced Herk, earning confused looks from the whole table. “I’m from Coruscant, guys.”

“Okay, please tell me you do not have some big apartment that could have held all of us,” Lio begged.

“Oh yeah, I do.”

“And you didn’t tell me this before I rented this place because….?”

“You never asked.”

Lio chucked a scrap of food at Herk’s face, and Maggi once again had to calm things down before the rest of the squad could answer.

“I’ll go home eventually,” said Timber. “But not right away. Wanna have some more fun first. Might go hang out on Takodana.”

“I’m with you,” said Lio, whose family was back on Naboo, by far the nicest of the worlds the unit called home. “My wife probably doesn’t want to see me yet anyway.”

“I wouldn’t if I was her,” Herk said.

“What about you, Rylan?” asked Dalla, ignoring the boys’ nonsense. “You going back home? Where is that, anyway?”

“Corellia,” Rylan admitted. “And, uh, not if I can help it. Guess I’m here until I figure something else out.”

“Cara? What about you?” Maggi asked brightly.

Cara had been staring at the table for the duration of the exchange, continuing to grip her mug so hard her fingers had turned white. She looked up upon hearing her name and said, “I hadn’t thought about it. Excuse me.”

She got up and left the table before anyone could react, the sound of a door sliding shut following her exit. The others looked around at each other with surprised faces before their eyes all landed on Rylan.

“Must be tired,” she said with a nervous chuckle. 

Some of the looks went from surprised to concerned, and Maggi began to stand up.

“No,” Rylan said, holding up a hand to stop her. “I got it.”

As she started down the hall, she heard Timber say something to break the silence, and the crew mercifully kept on without them. She knocked softly on their shared door. “Cara? It’s me. You alright?”

She heard a sniffle. “I’m fine, Ry.”

“That’s good.” She sighed. “You mind if I come in?”

Several seconds of silence passed, and Rylan thought she hadn’t heard. But finally, “Okay.”

Cara was seated on the floor, her back against Rylan’s bed, which was the closest to the door. She must have collapsed as soon as she’d made it to safety, Rylan figured. She lowered herself down beside her, wrapping an arm around her strong shoulders. Cara melted into her, sniffling some more as she tried to hold back sobs.

“Hey, it’s okay. I got you. It’s okay.” Rylan, rarely at a loss for words, couldn’t find the right ones for this situation.

After a minute Cara was calm again, except for the hand that had latched onto Rylan’s shirt and was holding it tight. “I really hadn’t thought about it,” she whispered.

Rylan’s heart broke. Cara had dived head-first into a war after losing everything. Her incredible bravery had been fueled in large part by an indifference toward death. What did her life matter anyway, when everyone she’d ever known was gone? But she’d survived. So what would her life mean now, without them?

“I know,” was all Rylan could say.

“I don’t have a home.”

“I know,” she repeated. 

Then it dawned on her. The only thing she was interested in doing before their new assignment. She gently pulled Cara’s face up so she could look in her eyes.

“Why don’t we go find one together?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean….we get a ship, fly it across the galaxy, and find a world that feels right. Feels like home.”

“What if we can’t?”

“I can get us a ship in no time, we jus--”

“No,” Cara said desperately, gripping the shirt harder. “What if we can never find one that’s right?”

Rylan chuckled softly. “It’s a big galaxy, Cara. It would take forever to cross them all off the list. In the meantime, we just….have fun. Do our jobs. Be together. Me and you.”

Her heart skipped a beat as Cara’s eyes widened at the last part. She didn’t know if she’d meant to say it like that.

“Me and you?”

“I mean, yeah. If you’ll have me,” she said, hoping to give off at least some hint of confidence.

Cara looked down, biting her bottom lip in thought. Rylan followed her gaze, worried she’d pushed too hard. But the next thing she knew, Cara’s lips were on hers in a soft, sweet kiss.

It only lasted a second, but it was the best second Rylan could remember ever living.

“Okay,” said the Alderaanian, looking affectionately into her eyes. “Where to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would be the point where I completely lost the will to write on my last story. Just a little fun fact. Don't worry, this one is already (almost) finished.
> 
> Also there's a nice big time jump between this part and the next.


	4. Echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a time jump. This is the last full chapter, but I will probably have the epilogue out on Sunday. Having tried to fit this into the actual Mandalorian storyline as best as I could, there's really no way to end it happily. Don't say I didn't warn you.

_**~three years, five planets later~** _

Rylan ran a hand through her messy blonde hair as she stepped into the cockpit of her ship, saying a silent prayer that it would work this time. They had been stuck on this rock far longer than she cared to think about, and if she couldn’t get the ship off the ground, well, that wouldn’t change any time soon.

“Come on, baby,” she whispered to the ship as she sat in the pilot’s seat. “Come on, baby.”

“I know I’ve told you this before, but I hate when you talk to the ship the same way you talk to me,” Cara quipped from the co-pilot’s chair.

Rylan grinned at her mischievously. “Stop complaining and flip the-“ Cara flipped a switch on the control panel before she could finish. They had been over this routine enough times for her to know. “Thank you. Okay. Moment of truth….”

She pulled one more lever and the ship roared to life. _Good start_. She held her breath for 10 seconds, waiting, listening. The ship continued to purr steadily.

“Huh.” Cara sounded equal parts surprised and impressed. Rylan turned to her with an excited smile, slowly extending a hand toward her. Cara laughed and high-fived her. “Nice work, Killis.”

“Buckle up, baby, we’re outta here!” Cara rolled her eyes at her partner but strapped herself in as Rylan guided the ship into the atmosphere. “Say goodbye to Savareen.”

~

Rylan punched in the coordinates for a little-known hyperspace lane and engaged the autopilot. Standing up to follow Cara to the back of the ship, she paused to pat a wall of the cockpit appreciatively. The old VCX-100 wasn’t much to look at and it gave her its fair share of headaches, but she loved the old hunk of junk. They’d renamed it the _Alderaan Echo_ when they bought it three years ago. It now had a piece of both their histories - Corellian made, Alderaanian by name. The _Echo_ had already taken them back and forth across the galaxy, and now it was taking them somewhere new.

Rylan found Cara in the small kitchen, taking out supplies for a meal. She wrapped her arms around her from behind and rested her head on her shoulder. Cara smiled and put down what she was working on. “So, what’s next on the list?” she asked.

So far, the pair’s journey to finding a planet to call home had come up empty. They’d tried out Coruscant for a while, then Takodana, Dantooine, Kijimi, and finally Savareen. Each one had had its merits - stuff to do, seclusion, anonymity, fine weather - but after a time they’d all been ruled out. Usually by Cara. She had yet to find one that felt right, coming to Rylan after a few months and just shaking her head. They didn’t even need to discuss it anymore. It was just understood. 

Rylan didn’t mind. She’d realized a long time ago that it didn’t matter to her where they landed. Home, to her, was anywhere with Cara.

“Lothal,” she answered, as the Alderaanian turned around to face her. “I got a good feeling about this one.”

“A good feeling, huh?” Cara asked, but pulled Rylan into a kiss before she could answer.

“Mmm, yep. Very good,” the Corellian said, her brain growing fuzzy. “Very remote, it’s perfect. Heard about it from a pilot friend back i-”

Cara put a finger on her lips to shut her up, then replaced it with her own. “How about you tell me when we get there?” she suggested, pulling Rylan by the jacket toward their bunk.

Ry’s mind went blank as she followed. “Tell you what?”

~

Rylan dropped the _Echo_ out of hyperspace and checked the scanners. No other ships for parsecs. “Looks clear. No one on our tail today.”

“Good,” said Cara. “I’d hate for this good feeling of yours to go to waste.”

“Not to worry, sweetheart," the Corellian said. "Those lanes Lio found us have been useful so far. Totally off the grid.”

Getting around for the past year had been….slightly more complicated than before, to say the least. 

Their unit’s first assignments immediately following the Battle of Jakku had been nothing short of fun for the droppers, rounding up some of the scattered Imps still trying to impart their rule. But once that was done and they’d been relegated to keeping the peace in the early days of the New Republic, the team started to grow restless. Acting as bodyguards for politicians, they all agreed, wasn’t what they’d signed up for. It didn’t take long for the jokes about taking an “early retirement” to turn into serious talks.

Then, in a particularly ugly riot on Chandrila, they’d lost Keoni. The day of his funeral on Bespin, the rest of the squad agreed as one not to report when their next assignment came through. They’d been AWOL ever since, scattered throughout the galaxy but connected through secure communication channels, helping each other stay off the New Republic’s radar as best they could.

Life on the run suited Rylan and Cara just fine. They had each other. They had their freedom. And, as long as they stayed off the grid, they’d be able to put down their roots as soon as they found a world that worked. Truthfully, Rylan didn’t know what to expect for their lives when they finally did settle down. She’d never known what it was like to have a permanent home, a stable family.

Is that what they were, the two of them? A family? It would be difficult to near-impossible, in terms of both biology and logistics, for them to expand their family. The uncertain life of an intergalactic fugitive wasn’t exactly conducive to raising kids, even if they could have them. Life was good (although crazy at times) for the two of them, and if nothing more ever came of it she’d be perfectly happy. But the thought of having a family, a real family, with Cara? Well, that would be better than anything she could dream up.

Rylan attempted to put those thoughts out of her mind long enough to land the _Echo_ on the rocky surface of Lothal. But the sight of Hera Syndulla and her green-haired little boy waving at them from the ground made that difficult.

“Aww, look at them,” Cara said, smiling as Rylan guided the ship gently to a stop. “I’m starting to get a good feeling about this one, too.”

~

Two months in on Lothal and the good feelings hadn’t faded.

Rylan had worried for half a moment that the once-General Hera Syndulla wouldn’t be all that sympathetic to a pair of deserters, but they couldn’t have received a better welcome. Hera and Jacen had happily invited them into their own little family, which at the current moment was just as spread out as the pair’s unit was, if not more so. The four of them had bonded easily over how much they missed the rest of their found families.

And they’d fallen quickly into routines. Rylan and Hera spent most mornings swapping stories of their past heroics in the pilot’s seat, while Jacen dragged Cara off to play with him and Chopper, their fussy astromech droid. At first Rylan thought Cara might have only been playing with the kid out of guilt or boredom, but the two seemed to have been enjoying it equally when she’d seen her teaching him how to wrestle.

This morning they’d gotten an early start apparently, as Rylan emerged from the _Echo_ to find them already outside sparring before breakfast. They’d moved on from traditional fighting techniques as well, with Cara now teaching the youngling the art of taking down a much bigger opponent. Rylan leaned against the ship and watched quietly, remembering the first time she’d trained with the Alderaanian and learned some of the same moves. So much had changed since then, but not Cara’s skills. Not that there was much use for them here.

Rylan’s daydreams were broken up by Cara’s voice calling to her with a challenge. “You got next, Killis?”

“Against you or the kid?”

“Tag team. Us against you.”

“Not a chance,” Rylan laughed. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”

Cara covered her mouth and fake-whispered to Jacen, “That’s debatable.” The green-headed boy went into a fit of laughter and Rylan rolled her eyes as Hera called them all in for breakfast.

“It’s really not nice when you two team up against me,” Rylan whined at her partner as Jacen raced inside.

Cara wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, babe. I would’ve gone easy on you.”

~

After breakfast, Hera had insisted that Jacen give their visitors a little space. Neither of them minded his constant attention and in fact loved playing with him in their own ways, but they didn’t protest when his mother commanded him to get started on his chores. Instead they took the opportunity to get back to their ship and do some chores of their own.

Rylan had been making little upgrades to the _Echo_ since they’d landed on Lothal, appreciative of the help provided by both Hera and Chopper. Her latest project was trying to figure out how to develop her own cloaking device to avoid detection by other ships. How they’d managed so far without one she didn’t know, but if she could find the parts she needed in town, they’d have that much more protection if and when they decided to relocate again.

“Headed to the city for parts,” she informed Cara, who had finished her chores and was now engaged in a heated game of holochess against Chopper. “Wanna come?”

Cara didn’t look up from the game as she answered - she’d learned that the droid had no qualms about cheating if you took your eyes off him. “And do what, stand around bored while you argue with people about their prices? I’m good.”

“I wouldn’t have to argue with them if they’d just set fair prices to begin with,” Rylan complained. “I grew up on Corellia, if anybody knows how much ship parts should cost, it’s me.”

“Yeah, see, this is exactly what I don’t need to hear for the 400th time.”

“Well, suit yourself,” Rylan said, sighing dramatically. “I, for one, will miss your company.”

“Damn right you will,” Cara said, grinning as she made a move against Chopper. “Hey, take the comlink in case I think of something else you need to get.”

“Way ahead of you, babe,” said Rylan, who leaned down to turn Cara’s face away from the game and kiss her deeply. “Be back in a bit.”

She started to walk out, leaving her partner slightly stunned while the droid made a laughing sound, pleased with himself for getting away with an illegal move.

“Hey,” Cara called as she was almost out the door. “Hurry back. I miss that face when you’re gone.”

“Damn right you do.” Rylan winked at her and left the ship.

~

Two hours and three shops later, Rylan had what she needed. She took the comlink from her pocket as she started back toward the outskirts of the city, where she’d parked Hera’s landspeeder.

“Ghostrider to _Echo_ base, I’m about to head back. Last chance to put in a request,” she said into the communicator, hoping Cara hadn’t forgotten about or misplaced her own device.

She was about to try her again when the voice she was waiting for came back. “‘Ghostrider’?”

“Just trying out a new code name. Do we need anything or not?”

“Better try out a different one,” Cara suggested. “Gimme a minute.”

Rylan shook her head and waited. She looked around at the other citizens out and about in the town. No one seemed to be in much of a hurry, such was life on Lothal. A couple of kids chased a Loth-cat down an alley across from her. A woman down the street sat behind a table full of various fruits for sale. A pair of humanoids loitered aimlessly about a block down from where she was waiting.

An unexpected chill ran up Rylan’s spine as her eyes landed on the latter duo. They hadn’t been there when she’d walked past that spot just a minute ago. She squinted her eyes to look closer and saw that the taller one was a Zabrak, dressed in light armor. The other appeared to be human but she couldn’t be sure, as much of his face was obscured by a large pair of flight goggles and a neck cover. She realized she’d seen them each before, separately. The human had come into the first parts shop she’d entered, a few minutes behind her, and the Zabrak had been hanging around in the third one when she’d gotten there. Both had left before her without buying anything.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Something inside her told her that this was very wrong.

“Cara,” Rylan said into the comlink, trying not to give away her fear but hoping to convey some urgency. “Cara, pick up.”

“I’m still checking, Ry, hang on.”

“Cara, no. Something’s wrong,” she said, ducking into the nearest alleyway.

“Wrong? What do you mean, wrong?”

“I’m being followed. I think we might have been made.” She looked over her shoulder. The human had followed her into the alley but she was still well ahead of him.

Cara cursed over the comlink. “Of all the days for me to refuse to go with you.” She sounded scared. Rylan hadn’t heard her sound that scared in a very long time.

“It’s gonna be okay, just listen to me,” she ordered, rounding another corner and pulling her blaster from its holster. “If I’m not back in 20 minutes, you get on that ship and you go to the next planet on the list, you hear me? The coordinates are saved, just go. I’ll meet you there.”

“Ry--”

“Cara, tell me you’ll go. Go to Sorgan. It’s next on the list,” Rylan’s voice betrayed her, her fear and desperation leaking through. She checked over her shoulder again, taking off in a sprint when she spotted the man tailing her.

“Sorgan. Okay,” Cara said shakily. “Ry?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” Rylan said, turning a corner. And running face first into a bright blue circle of light.

~

For the first time she could remember, Rylan was relieved not to see Cara next to her when she woke up. She was still fuzzy from the stun blast, but she knew it meant her captors hadn’t gotten to her as well. With any luck, she’d made it off-world and out of reach already.

She took a moment to take in her surroundings and realized she must be on a ship, although it didn’t feel like it was moving. Her hands were bound behind her back and it felt like her feet were probably secured as well. She spotted a carbon freezing unit and her heart sank as her worst fear was confirmed. _A bounty hunter_. 

The Zabrak was there, sitting a few feet away with his arms crossed, watching her get her bearings. No sign of the human. “Where’s the other?” the alien demanded.

“Other what?” Rylan groaned, head pounding.

“Don’t play dumb. I was told there were two on this planet. Where is the other?”

She realized he was talking about Cara, and she tried her best not to look relieved. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can’t a lady go out and buy some junk without getting assaulted by some ugly moof milkers?”

The Zabrak chuckled humorlessly. “Alright. If you want to play that way we can play that way,” he said, standing and calling toward the cockpit. “Get in here.”

Rylan watched as the other man entered the hold, taking off his goggles and cover to reveal a familiar face. She thought she was dreaming.

“Herk?”

Her former squad-mate stood over her, a cold look in his eye. “Where’s Dune, Killis?”

“Nice to see you too, buddy,” Rylan said, her voice dripping with so much disdain it surprised even herself. “Been a while.”

“Enough, Rylan. Tell us where she is and nobody has to get hurt.”

“It’s a little late for that, Herk, you’re already breakin’ my heart here,” she said, avoiding the subject. “What happened, you join the guild and decide to round up your own crew for easy money? Must be your first job, I didn’t think you guys traveled in pairs.”

At that, the Zabrak snorted. “We don’t. He’s not in the guild. He’s as much a bounty as you are until we find your friend.”

Rylan slowly did the math. To protect each other, none of the squad had known where everyone was, but everybody knew where one other one was hiding out. She and Cara had drawn Maggi and would be able to find her in case of an emergency. And Herk, it seemed, had drawn them.

“You got caught,” she said, and Herk’s jaw clenched. “You were sloppy enough to get caught. And stupid enough to think you could sell out your family to get out of it.”

“Oh, enough with that ‘family’ crap. We were a team for a while, so what? Way I see it, that ended the day we deserted,” he said, and for his sake Rylan was glad she was restrained. “This is just business.”

She turned to the Zabrak. “You told him you’d let him go if he gave you two more?” she asked the hunter, who nodded.

“I did,” he said. “But you know, I’m gettin’ tired. Think I might as well just head back with the two I got and collect my pay.”

Herk whirled around. “No, no, no, hang on. I can help you find Dune,” he pleaded.

“I don’t think so,” said the hunter. “This one’s not as stupid as you. I’m sure they actually had a plan and the other one is halfway across the galaxy by now.”

“No, but-- wait, I--” Herk’s protest was cut off as another stun blast rang out. Rylan watched him fall to the floor in a heap, the sound of the blast echoing in her mind.

The Zabrak hunter bound him and left without another word to prep for takeoff, leaving her to silently pray that Cara was, in fact, halfway across the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you'd like to yell at me or ask me anything you can find me on tumblr @chippingthegoalkeeper. Getting messages makes my day.


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it. Hope you've enjoyed this and don't hate me for the unhappy ending. In my mind there's a way it does end happily but I won't commit to that until we get the next season. October can't come soon enough.

The rare sound of a passing ship overhead caught Cara Dune’s attention. She hoped she wouldn’t come to resent the little leap of hope her heart performed when she caught sight of it. But history told her she would.

With each ship and each leap of her heart that had happened over the past 10 months, only disappointment had followed. She always watched them land and waited with bated breath as their passengers unloaded, praying to see the familiar shock of yellow hair. But she never did.

Against all expectations, Sorgan had turned out to be the one. The forested planet had the perfect climate and beautiful scenery. It was secluded, but there were enough people coming and going to keep her from getting bored. She had little need for credits but she could earn them easily gambling or fighting, as the travelers in and out of the town tended to underestimate her skills. She had even made a friend in Ida, the woman who owned and ran the common house where she spent most of her time.

The only thing missing was her other half.

Cara tried to put this cruel irony out of her mind as she watched the gunship descend behind the trees on the outskirts of the town and started to make her way toward the common house. Inside, she took up her usual seat where she could see everything, accepted a flagon of spotchka from Ida, and waited. She tried not to imagine how it would feel to watch Rylan walk through the door, to see her again after all this time. To fly into each other’s arms and never let go. She always tried not to imagine. But she couldn’t help it.

Those images dissolved quickly, though, as the newest travelers entered. An obviously well-armed Mandalorian and a little green….thing...were about as far from who she was waiting for as she could possibly imagine.

Alarm bells went off in Cara’s head as the stranger sat down and surveyed the patrons of the common house. Even with his eyes hidden behind the beskar helmet, she could tell he’d spotted her. Made her. 

He wasn’t exactly subtle about it, nearly going so far as to point at her when he spoke to Ida. Cara knew Ida was loyal enough not to tell a stranger the truth about her, even if he did slip her some extra credits. 

But she also knew she had to get out of there. And be ready for a fight when he followed.

~

Even after finding out the Mandalorian didn’t have a bounty puck for her, Cara didn’t fully trust him. She’d mostly gone with him to the village out of curiosity, needing a distraction from the seemingly endless wait for her partner’s return. But it didn’t take long for that to change. Facing down death in the form of an AT-ST had a way of bringing people together.

Which was why, weeks after the skirmish, she felt comfortable enough to call him out about the helmet thing. The chemistry between him and Omera, the sharpshooting villager, was undeniable. And yet, he seemed determined to deny it.

“So what happens if you take that thing off?” she asked as they watched the village children play with the little green being. “They come after you and kill you?”

It was the only explanation she could come up with that would have made _her_ commit to such a way of life. Never showing your face to anyone, living your whole life behind a mask. Giving up basically any chance of ever getting close to someone. _On second thought..._

“No,” he said plainly. “You just can’t ever put it back on again.”

“That’s it?” she asked, slightly incredulous. “So you can slip off the helmet and settle down with that beautiful young widow, and raise your kid sitting here, sipping spotchka?”

He just looked at her, silently confirming. She sipped from her own mug and looked away, trying to hide the irrational anger boiling up inside her. In truth, she didn’t care what this Mandalorian did or who he showed his face to. But here he was, with the opportunity to settle down into a peaceful, happy life - the life she longed for - and he wouldn’t take it. Cara would have given anything for that opportunity, and he was throwing it away over one meaningless rule that no one would even know he ever broke.

It hurt her even more when he told her he was planning to leave the kid there. It made sense of course - at least, more than his other decision - but it still stung that he was so willing to give up something, someone, that he obviously cared about.

“It’s gonna break his little heart,” she said, speaking from experience.

“He’ll get over it,” the raspy voice responded. “We all do.”

Cara shook her head and thought about the times she’d been left behind, suddenly alone and expected to get over it. She didn’t think she ever would. Just when she’d started to get over the loss of her home and her entire family, when she had found a home in someone else and made a new family, she’d lost all that too. As far as Cara was concerned, her life was just a cycle of loss and pain. One she could never get over.

_Unless…._

Maybe she didn’t have to wait for Rylan to come to Sorgan. Maybe she could leave with the Mandalorian, hire him to help find her, and bring her back. He was obviously a good hunter. Smart, skilled, well-equipped, okay maybe a little too quick to go to the flamethrower but could she really blame him when she’d kicked his ass so soundly? Surely together they could track her down.

Cara left her seat by the hut and went off to find him. But before she could, a movement in the forest caught her eye.

And by the time they spoke again, asking the Mandalorian for help was no longer an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Come holler at me on tumblr @chippingthegoalkeeper.


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